FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT BLOOD CELLS - PAGE 4

In a new approach to fighting cancer, doctors say they have used ultraviolet light to activate a powerful drug in the bloodstream and apparently vaccinate cancer victims against their own disease. The technique, described in today's New England Journal of Medicine, has produced remarkable remissions in some people, suffering a relentlessly fatal form of blood cancer, who had not responded to ordinary treatment. The therapy - which was tested at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City and at the medical centers at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California at San Francisco, the University of Vienna and the University of Dusseldorf - appears to marshal the body's own immune defenses to zero in on cancer and destroy it. It seems to do this without causing nausea, hair loss or any of the other common side-effects of chemotherapy or radiation.

When Joe Cerasi got married in September 1993, he probably already had the disease. The first symptoms showed up around then - he had lost weight, he was pale - but they could all be explained away. "My diet had changed drastically when I got married - you know, a lot of vegetables instead of fast food. I assumed that was a lot of the reason for the weight loss," he said. "By Christmas, people were saying I was whittling away, but I thought, 'A new wife, a new house, that's a lot of stress.

On Wednesday, Haddonfield Police Cpl. George Ames will do for a second time something very few people get a chance to do even once. He will try his best to save a life. Ames will enter Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia, where his bone marrow will be harvested for transplant into a patient with leukemia. The recipient this time will be a 46-year-old man. Three years ago, it was a 36- year-old man. In 1992, Ames was notified that a National Marrow Donor Program search had discovered that he was a perfect match for someone with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML)

CUP OF SORROW You know those forms you fill out when you see a new doctor, asking whether you've ever had this, that or the other thing? Well, pediatricians almost never ask parents whether they suffer from alcoholism, thus ignoring one of the biggest health menaces afflicting children, according to an American Journal of Diseases of Children report. Hundreds of thousands of youngsters suffer injury or death in car accidents, violence or neglect related to alcohol-abusing parents, surveys show.

Seattle businessman John L. Moore gave up his spleen to shed himself of a rare form of cancer 14 years ago. Moore recovered, and is living - as is a dispute about the fate of his spleen. The spleen, instead of being thrown onto a medical slag heap, was saved, studied and found to contain cells that have great therapeutic value in helping cancer patients, and possibly AIDS patients, fight infection and disease. The discovery led to a patent, which led to the development of a commercial product, which led to the exchange of a lot of money - none of which went to Moore.

Q: I'm developing blood clots for no apparent reason. They settle in my hands and fingers. All tests are negative, yet I remain on Coumadin. Since my doctor cannot determine a diagnosis, can you? A: Blood clots that "settle" in your hands and fingers must be coming from somewhere, usually from the larger arteries supplying the upper extremities, or from the heart itself. When an arterial lining becomes rough and irregular (as occurs from aging and arteriosclerosis), blood cells tend to adhere and lead to blood clots.

Cases of AIDS have been reported for the first time in an Islamic country, both associated with transfusions of blood imported from the United States, according to today's Journal of the American Medical Association. Doctors say a major public health hazard could be brewing in Saudi Arabia because an undetermined amount of blood imported from the United States was not screened for AIDS. In the first two known cases of AIDS in an Islamic country, a 42-year-old man and a 5-year-old boy in Saudi Arabia got the fatal disease after receiving transfusions of imported blood in 1981, the Journal article said.

Within hours of helping the Colorado Avalanche advance to the Western Conference finals, Peter Forsberg walked into his favorite postgame hangout intent on enjoying a subdued celebration. As he strode through the trendy restaurant, Forsberg spotted Avalanche general manager Pierre Lacroix and team owner Stan Kroenke and told them he had a strange feeling in his stomach. About 30 minutes later, Forsberg's late-night plans changed drastically. He was heading for the emergency room, where tests revealed a ruptured spleen and internal bleeding that required surgery.

If tensions with Iraq turn into a shooting war, the blood and plasma that battlefront medics might need to treat wounded Americans will come from here. McGuire Air Force Base in Burlington County and Travis Air Force Base in California are the only military facilities in the nation with labs that receive, store and ship blood overseas for the Air Force, Army and Navy. In a squat, warehouse-like building that many at McGuire know more as a place to get ice than a blood center, three members from each branch of the service work side by side, checking incoming shipments of blood and preparing to send them to U.S. bases in Europe and the Middle East.

The total cost of treating illness caused by smoking averages about $1.55 for every pack smoked, with the nonsmoking public paying much of the bill, a researcher said yesterday. This cost should be tacked onto the price of cigarettes to discourage younger smokers or incorporated into health-insurance plans to reward nonsmokers, said Blake Cady, a cancer surgeon with the New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston. "If somebody's dumb enough to smoke in this day and age, they should pay their own bills," he said during a telephone interview.